Dewey BennettHST 454May 3rd, 2015Dr. Gao Bei

NOTE: The final copy of this document was lost when a hard drive crashed. The majority of content is included in this near-final draft, though there may be grammatical errors.

Splashing Around: Domestic Political Dynamics and the Pacific War Outcome

Introduction

The popular history of the Pacific War, in both Japan and the United States. recounts that

a United States victory was inevitable due to its abundance of natural resources and industrial

capital.1 The history of naval warfare, however, is replete with David and Goliath victories in

both Eastern and Western traditions, such as Sir Francis Drake’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in

1588, Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s remarkable 1597 victory in the Battle of Myeongyang, Admiral

Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, or even the contemporary Battle off Samar in 1944 where effective

strategy applied by an inferior force still managed to achieve decisive victory. It is thus far too

simplistic to conclude that the United States’ industrial might was the sole decisive factor,

particularly considering its lack of preparation. A more robust explanation for the American

victory lies in the flexibility and accountability of its military and civilian political structures,

which allowed it to rapidly evolve post-Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, the Japanese militaristic

rigidity and lack of transparency led its armed forces to both poor preparation and an inability to

correct faults after the war began.

The dominant narrative repeats that the Japanese, having awoken the American industrial

dragon, faced an inevitable defeat by an enemy with the endless ability to manufacture

weaponry. This narrative was evident even in early private wartime propaganda, such as in Walt

Disney’s Victory Through Airpower; an animated strategic proposal guaranteeing victory if the

United States used strategic bombing to leverage its vast industrial reserves against Japan’s 1 Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore Failor Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History (New York: New Press, 1992), 17.

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corresponding deficiencies.2 The early post-war assessments seemingly confirmed the wartime

sentiments in the official United States Strategic Bombing Summary Report, which noted in its

introduction that “Japan’s war plans did not contemplate, nor were its capabilities such that it

could have contemplated, interference with the United States.”3 The unofficial - though sourced

with permission from official naval records - academic account of the struggle by Samuel

Morison Jr. echoed its official counterpart. In a blunt assessment regarding the inevitability of

Japanese defeat Morison wrote that in response to the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan would be forced

to “suffer an irresistible counterattack.”4 With the industrial supremacy of the United States a

given, the academic debate regarding the end of the Pacific War turned to an often political

squabble over the atomic bombs’ roles in Japan’s otherwise inevitable defeat.

Japan is noted for its lack of historical self-evaluation in the wake of the Second World

War, as modern politicians continue to take positions on the existence, or purported lack thereof,

of Imperial atrocities – a stark contrast to the Western portrayals of the war. Curiously, the

Japanese account of the Pacific War mirrors and accepts, however, the American view that

defeat was rooted in the potential industrial strength of the Allied Powers. Masanori Ito, perhaps

the most reputed Japanese naval scholar of the conflict, concluded in his seminal monograph on

Japanese naval decline that, based on both the restrictions of the pre-war naval conferences and

resource limitations, “Japan had no chance of winning a war.”5 Written in 1956, Ito’s ideas were

well-received by a Japanese citizenry seeking to escape blaming either themselves or the national

character. The dominant sentiment recorded by Haruko and Theodore Cook when compiling

2 Victory Through Airpower, prod. Walt Disney, dir. H. C. Potter, perf. Alexander De Seversky (United States: Walt Disney Productions, 1943).3 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1946), 1.4 Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: Coral Sea Midway and Submarine Actions May 1942-August 1942, vol. 4 (Boston: Little Brown, 1949), 8.5 Masanori Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, trans. Roger Pineau and Andrew Y. Kuroda (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956), 201.

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their oral histories of Japan in the late ‘80s remained, “the Japanese are far more likely to

attribute defeat to Allied production processes, to blame material more than people.”6 The

consensus on an inevitable, resource-dependent loss can itself be attributed to the overall

reluctance of the Japanese people to examine their own wartime narrative out of the fear they

may find themselves deserving of more guilt. Thus, a further investigation of the non-industrial

roots of defeat lends itself not only to a more accurate understanding of the conflict overall, but

of the Japanese reluctance to discuss it.

Even were American overall victory a foregone conclusion, different behaviors by the

United States Navy and government in its pre-war evolution could have contributed to more

rapid success and lower loss of life than the brutality of island-hopping. Likewise, had Japan

better prepared its own fleet composition and tactics in addition to designing a war aim

inherently consistent with its military means, it may have been able to capitalize on the immense

logistical challenges the United States faced in fighting across the Earth’s most expansive ocean.7

Neither military, however, entered the conflict in an ideal military position. Due to the

interaction of the international naval status quo, determined in the previous half century by

various naval treaties and the dominance of Mahanian thought, with the domestic political

context of both nations, neither state was truly prepared for the engagement. Nonetheless, the

flexibility offered by the United States’ political regime, in contrast to the stark rigidity of the

Japanese military government, enabled it to properly react to its failings and thus subdue the

Empire of Japan.

Pre-War Status Quo

6 Cook, Japan at War, 17.7 Duncan S. Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1998), 40.

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The international naval status quo was created by two treaties in the aftermath of the First

World War. First, the Treaty of Versailles legitimized the Japanese occupation of previously

German-held islands, seized in the war’s early days, including the Marshall, Marianas, Caroline,

and Palau Islands.8 As US naval planners immediately realized, the control of these islands

blocked its sea lines of communication to the Philippines and Guam. Furthermore, the other

major treaty of the twenties, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, dictated that the United

States could not fortify its non-state Pacific possessions.9 This status quo heading into the 1930s

was analyzed by contemporary military strategist Hector Bywater in his 1929 monograph

Nations and Navies, which stated the United States’ positions were simply indefensible and their

re-taking would require “an amphibious campaign exceeding in magnitude and difficulty

anything of the kind that has previously been attempted.”10 The Washington Naval Conference,

seeking mostly to stunt the growth of another Dreadnought-style battleship arms race, limited the

Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) to a 3:5 tonnage ratio with the United States and Great Britain.11

Although seen by Westerners as recognition of Japanese military might, having given them a

greater ship allotment than France and Italy, the Japanese saw the limitation as a humiliation – a

perception which would be key in the way they responded to this and subsequent treaties.12

During the critical period of the 1930s, two further major naval conferences in London,

during 1931 and 1936, attempted to re-assess the now decade-old Washington Conference.

Unsurprisingly, the previously attempts to prevent an arms race in capital ships merely re-

directed military finances and attention to the development of more powerful cruisers and

8 Reilly Ridgell, Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia (Honolulu, Hawaiʻi: Bess Press, 2006), 62.9 "Conference on the Limitation of Armament, Washington November 12, 1921 – February 6, 1922," in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: 1922, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861), 253.10 Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War , 41.11“Conference on the Limitation…”, 253.12Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 14.

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submarines instead of reducing costs.13 During the first conference, fully held between 1930 and

1931, the ban on battleship construction was re-affirmed as the major powers attempted to also

limit the growing power of non-capital vessels, again drawing the ire of Imperial Japan. As

submarines played a key, but ultimately misguided, role in the Japanese war plans, the IJN

attempted to secure a 78,000 ton limit on submarine fleets but were thwarted by Anglo-American

insistence on a limit of 52,700 tons.14 As this left the Japanese two full submarine squadrons

short of their planned undersea fleet, its negotiators again returned to Honshu with feelings of

contempt and humiliation.15 Due to the increasingly Army-dominated political situation, this

humiliation was met with a determination to circumvent the treaty in secrecy while biding its

time till the treaty’s1936 expiration. Accordingly, the primary controversy and significance of

the 1936 London Naval Treaty was Japan’s refusal to longer acquiesce to international building

restrictions, whereas the Americans continued to design their pre-war navy along treaty

guidelines. The international status quo so set, the Japanese and American responses to this

situation differed radically and, in large part, due to their domestic political regimes.

The naval status quo was not, however, completely defined by international agreements.

An undeniably important factor in international naval warfare long preceded the conferences.

The writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan, an American naval scholar of the late 19th century

strongly influenced both the United States and Japanese navies. In his major work The Influence

of Seapower Upon History, Mahan argues that command of the seas is critical to imperial

dominance and that it is best achieved by decisively crushing the enemy’s main fleet to gain

complete control over the fundamental sea lines of communication.16 Although Mahanian

13 Clay Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975), 136.14 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy,26.15 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 23.16 A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (New York: Sagamore Press), 6.

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thought permeated all global navies the Japanese took a particular liking to it; more of Mahan’s

works were translated to and published in Japanese than any other foreign language.17 Especially

after the great victory at Tsushima in 1905, the concept of decisive victory central to Mahanian

strategy became equally central to Japanese military strategy as it turned its attention towards the

United States as its next rival.18

Domestic Factors

In the pre-war domestic political factors two primary intra-national relationships were the

most significant in determining the faulty preparation and execution of war aims: the military-

government dynamic and the subject-ruler dynamic. In the United States, the most influential of

these relationships was certainly the subject-ruler dynamic, which initially created doctrinal

weaknesses in the military but would ultimately prove malleable and responsive enough to

correct its peacetime deficiencies. Meanwhile in the Empire of Japan, the military-government

dynamic was more important - a relationship so dominated by the military that the terms were

nearly synonymous. As played out in the war, this dynamic, due to the sources of its power,

created a system too rigid to adequately plan or adapt to emergent realities of industrialized

warfare. The governmental dynamics created in each nation the issues of the reduction of

promising technologies to gimmicks, the denial of rational strategies in favor of orthodox and

politically-correct maneuvers, an ineffective allocation of officers and personnel, and the

acceptance as fact of racial stereotypes into military plans. As first evidenced by the

inadequacies in the United States Navy caused by the moral woes of civilians, in the pre-war era

neither governmental system led to the development of an efficient fleet or war plan.

17 Sadao Asada, "Alfred T. Mahan: Nativist, Imperialist, and Racist," in Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations: Historical Essays (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 54.18 Atushi Oi, "Report on Japanese Navy, 1941," in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, comp. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon (Lincoln: Potomac, 2005), 11.

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The United States’ Domestic Political Regime and Impact

Before and throughout the war the dominant strains of Japanese leadership felt that the

democratic nature of government in America burdened it with a weak stomach for military

conflict.19 Although this would prove untrue post-Pearl Harbor, the pre-war navy was seriously

hampered by the civilian control of government and domination of the military by this elected

civilian government. With a strong tradition of separation of powers combined with isolationist,

general moral, and budgetary concerns, the interwar USN was forced to adopt measures of war

in compliance with the presiding treaties rather than strategic considerations. Due to the

subordination of the military to civilians, there would be no secret treaty subversions as were to

be attempted by the Japanese. Locked by its own political situation into compliance with

publicly popular international law, the US government unintentionally created a series of

systematic incentives irrelevant to the needs of a wartime navy. Subject to public opinion, the US

was unable to encourage tactics later considered vital to war efforts.

The issues caused by this subordination of military matters to civilian political anxieties

are best exemplified through what can be described as the bureaucratization of the submarine

corps during the 1930s. To appease the public the military organized itself with a focus on

upholding international treaty obligations, reducing the cost of military action, maintaining the

utmost secrecy in its legal technological innovations, and an antiquated strategic plan in the

conduct of fleet operations. These concerns developed a series of incentives which undermined

the effectivity of submarine actions by creating an early submarine corps captained by timid

officers, chasing the wrong targets, and literally shooting blanks.20 Thus, the political incentives

of the US Navy on the eve of WWII did indeed create a situation in which promising

19 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 55.20 Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 232.

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technologies were reduced to uselessness, equally promising strategies were ignored, and the

development of effective personnel was limited.

The technological achievements of the 1920s and 1930s in response to the various naval

treaties in the United States held serious potential for destruction if both proper bureaucratic and

military doctrine were applied. As demonstrated through American cryptographic and torpedo

research, however, flaws in organization and use of intelligence made these programs victims of

their own success.21 Through the high-tech, yet understaffed, ‘Magic’ code-breaking program the

USN broke both the Japanese PURPLE diplomatic code and JN-25 Imperial Navy code without

the adversary ever suspecting them having done so.22 These gains, however, were squandered as

intercepted fleet information was used to send American submarines on goose-hunts to locate

larger, faster armed surface vessels rather than paying any attention to the Japanese merchant

marine, which the codes had revealed were significantly under-protected.23 An obsession with

maintaining an advantage consistent with the naval treaties, the Naval Ordinance Bureau made

the fatal mistake of only designing and never properly testing revolutionary torpedo designs

which sported state-of-the-art gyroscopic aiming, magnetic proximity fuses to promote ‘breaking

up’ of vessels, and a back-up contact trigger to supplement.24 Unfortunately, these designs

proved too advanced to move into production without proper testing and only succeeded in

manufacturing torpedoes which were duds in all three above respects.25 Of eight torpedoes

launched at docked ships in Luzon harbor by Commander Frederick Burdette Warder of the USS

Seawolf in early 1942 not a single torpedo exploded, despite the attempted use of both magnetic

and contact detonation methods.26 Because of the lack of testing and bureaucratic communication 21 Stephen L. Wolborsky, Choke Hold: The Attack on Japanese Oil in World War Ii (S.l., 2012), 19.22 Clay Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975), 18.23 Blair, Silent Victory, 18.24 Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 191.25 Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 191.26 Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan, 136.

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within the navy - practices which were intended to capitalize on the advantage conferred by the

high-tech torpedoes - they along with other potent technology were rendered little more than

gimmicks in the early stages of combat.

Treaty restrictions and a desire to maintain low costs in the event of war also denied the

adoption of strategies which would ultimately cripple the Japanese merchant fleet. In pre-war

doctrine, per the Root amendment whose overall significance shall be later explored, prize rules

made commerce raiding inefficient and instead placed the focus on attacking armed surface

vessels. Regardless of the Root amendment, it is doubtful American morality would have

approved of unrestricted submarine warfare in the first place – the reason for which the US Navy

permitted no war correspondents on submarines until the very last year of the war.27 Taken

together these conditions essentially put a moratorium on commerce raiding strategies in pre-war

maneuvers and led to the development of a submarine strategy based on remaining with the fleet

as supplementary destroyers for Mahanian-style, apocalyptic naval battles. When commerce

interception strategies were discussed, wolf-packing techniques, although known, were rejected

as the peacetime navy saw them only as a way for subs to be detected and lost. Under these

restraints, commanders were taught to never fire using periscopes and were reprimanded, if not

demoted, for being ‘pinged’ on sonar during maneuvers.28 Both from a tactical standpoint and

through the effects this had on the promotion of poor submarine commanders, the conservative

submarine strategies created a need to overhaul misconceptions mid-war.

Altogether, the above obsessions with treaty compliance, cost saving, morality, and

strategic rigidity created a series of promotional incentives within the submarine corps

inconsistent with the needs of modern naval warfare. The submarine commanders of the early

27 Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 188.28 Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan, 18.

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war were those who had ‘played it safe’ in maneuvers and were rewarded not for making a

successful simulated hit, but for remaining completely hidden to enemy sonar. Thus, aggressive

submarine commanders capable of making risky decisions were passed over for promotion in

favor of commanders who would prefer to let a target pass than risk detection.29 In the first

months of the war this was exacerbated by the focus on attacking armed vessels, at which

reticent skippers were often afraid to launch. The decision to attack large warships rather than

merchant vessels in pre-war doctrine was based strongly on the United States’ treaty obligations.

Due to high levels of accountability in its civilian government, the United States was

forced to follow the stipulations of the Washington Naval Treaty and London Naval Conferences

to the fullest, as each were popular achievements of isolationists. Most important of these in

regard to submarine warfare was Article XXII of the 1930 London Naval Conference, otherwise

referred to as the ‘Root’ amendment.30 The Root amendment dictated the application of prize

rules to submersible vessels, forcing them to surface, search, and provide safe passage for the

crew of any ship to be sunk in wartime.31 Given the speed advantage of surface vessels, this

effectively outlawed efficient commerce raiding and forced a strategy of attacking warships

alongside the fleet. In terms of the United States’ overall surface fleet, the navy benefited

significantly from its compliance to the treaties, as these forced a complete re-thinking of surface

combat in which aircraft carriers were envisioned as the new capital ships. The Japanese, on the

other hand, would suffer for their efforts to circumvent the treaties and cheat the arms race.

Though having hindered the pre-war development of strategy, the subject-ruler relations

in the United States eventually placed it in a better situation to rely on and mobilize its public

29 Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, 233.30 "International Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments 1930," International Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, Article XXII, http://www.microworks.net/pacific/road_to_war/london_treaty.htm.31 Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan, 60.

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when the conflict began. Having actively encouraged economic and social development in the

1930s through Roosevelt’s New Deal measures, the nation was in a prime position to leverage its

investments in human capital. Compared to Japanese efforts to mobilize its population for a pre-

war footing in the late ‘30s, the United States was overwhelmingly more successful due to this

culture of civilian control and abundance of industrial manpower. Also, primarily rooted in

moral and economic concerns rather than overall faulty military judgement, the civilian-based

hindrances to the development of an effective Navy disappeared during the first stages of the

war, with the appearance of an enraged American public more concerned with vengeance than

morality and an Admiral, Nimitz, more concerned with victory than existing doctrine.

Japanese Domestic Political Regime and Impact

The Japanese military governmental situation was in many ways the polar opposite to

that of the United States, instead creating a military-centric government with little to no civilian

oversight.32 The dynamic between civilians and the military government of Japan became a one-

way street as opportunists in the Imperial Army’s officer corps rapidly grew its political power

through the ‘20s and ‘30s by sparking military conflicts in Korea and China while

simultaneously assassinating both civilians and military officials who opposed the conflicts. By

governing through this reverse consensus, wherein a consensus was enforced via groupthink

rather than rational debate, the Army-dominated government of Japan consistently generated

strategies and weapons inconsistent with its war aims. With the basis of their consensus around

the pseudo-historic bushido code of honor, the IJA components of the government responded to

insults with aggression. Unwilling to accept criticism even from the most authoritative of

individuals, such as Admiral Yamamoto Isoruko, the Japanese Army exhibited a hubris even

Oedipus would have struggled to match. The rigidity of this regime and its focus on aggressive

32 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War), 1.

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position taking led it to a similar level of unpreparedness as the United States in regard to its own

squandered technology, failure to develop a rational strategy, and obscenely low levels of morale

by even its most talented warriors.

The source of Imperial Army power in the Japanese government came through its

continued ability to extract resources from its Korean and Manchurian possessions, which it was

then able to convert into domestic police authority through the forced resignations and

assassinations of non-imperialistic political elites.33 Relative to the participation and share of

spoils garnered by the Imperial Army, the IJN gained very little political influence from the

conquest of mainland Asia. Exemplary of this is the IJN’s paltry monthly budget of 1,190,000

yen on the eve of Pearl Harbor, while the Army received a purse eight times larger.34 This source

of authority was created and reinforced by violence abroad and domestic, garnering its

legitimacy from the namesake of the Emperor who nominally controlled the military, yet whose

true authority remains in doubt. As a result, the continued power of the Japanese military elites

depended on their ability to maintain its war efforts; an ability which was ultimately reliant on

logistical sourcing from foreign markets to acquire fuel and aviation parts it was incapable of

producing in the domestic market.

The civilian-governmental dynamic in Japan of the ‘30s was very weak. Few resources

were spent developing the human capital of Japanese civilians as the military continued to pour

resources back into its own coffers; by 1937 military expenditures accounted for a full 70% of

the national budget, compared to the still high figure of 30% in 1931.35 Meanwhile, the Japanese

citizenry lived a modest existence almost entirely unreliant on gasoline and mechanization. If

families even owned a radio, it was typically acquired for the sole purpose of listening to

33 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War) 1.34 Oi, The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, 26.35 Thomas R. H. Havens, Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two (New York: Norton, 1978), 3.

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casualty reports for the names of loved ones.36 This lack of technological familiarity deepened

the dependence on foreign technology and energy sources noted in the preceding paragraph as

skilled mechanics, necessary for aircraft and ship manufacture, were few and far between.

Furthermore, the contemporary ideology of the Army was much less consistent with national

values, considered by traditionalists to be too Prussianized, leading the bulk of the population to

associate more strongly with the IJN culturally. The virtual exclusion of the civilian population

from political action is further evidenced by the Army’s lack of a meaningful attempt to

effectively propagandize or arrest “thought criminals” between 1937 and 1943.37 When the

kempeitai, or military police, did pursue dissenters for ideological purposes the targets were in

large part communists, rather than generic East Asian sympathizers. It was not that the Army felt

itself unable or unwilling to convince civilians of its imperial intentions; rather, it felt there was

no political need to appeal to a disenfranchised populace.

Based on childlike aggression and a perception of humiliation in the treaties of the

preceding decades, the Japanese decided that, following the 1931 London Naval Conference they

would attempt to circumvent the treaty and secretly construct a series of battleships, the Yamato

class, which each displaced twice the tonnage permitted per capital ship in the treaties.38 In doing

this, rather than extend the lead in aircraft carriers they had developed during the 1920s, the

Japanese military squandered untold amounts of resources on engineering the largest ship-based

artillery in history: 18.1 inch cannons with a roughly twenty-five mile range of engagement.

Staffed by the best-connected of Naval officers, these three ships were built in such complete

secrecy that the United States was unable to determine the true speed, displacement, weaponry,

36, Japan at War: An Oral History, 4.37 Hatanaka Shigeo, "Thought Criminal," in Japan at War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya. Cook and Theodore Failor. Cook (New York: New Press, 1992), 222.38 “Conference on the Limitation…”, 253.

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and range of the vessels until the final year of the war, despite their advances in cryptography.39

The decision to focus on these vessels exhibits the IJN’s own faults in theory and strategy, which

remained based on battleships as the spine of a navy.

Japanese naval thought in the early 20th century was strongly, but not exclusively,

influenced by the theories of Mahan. Alongside The Influence of Seapower, Japanese naval

students were taught Admiral Shinshi Akiyama and Tetsutaro Sato’s Essential Instructions on

Naval Battles (Kai-Sen Yomu-Hei), which would remain the handbook of the IJN until the

Emperor’s capitulation.40 While Mahan’s initial work objected to the use of a commerce-raiding

strategy, this manual insinuated that “the colorless, monotonous, and entirely defensive warfare

of trade protection, no matter how important, did not suit the temperament of the Japanese

nation.”41 This basis of strategy on temperament and stereotypes, rather than a hierarchy of

strategic importance, permeated the army as well, leading to a number of incorrect assumptions

about the Americans which unfortunately were also key justifications for the claimed efficiency

of Japanese strategy.

Army leaders incorrectly assumed the temper, traits, and character of the American

people would make them easy to defeat. Prime among these was a belief that the democratic

nature of the United States would force them into suing for peace easily. Even in the aftermath of

the war a sentiment remained in the interviews of Japanese officers that a naval blockade similar

to the one imposed on Japan would cripple a democracy.42 As a whole, the Army’s position on

39 Masuda Reiji, "Transport War," in Japan at War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya. Cook and Theodore Failor. Cook (New York: New Press, 1992), 300.40 Oi, in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, 10.41 Oi, in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, 13.42 Saburo Tadenuma, Commander, IJN and T. H. Moorer, Commander, USN, "Nav. No 54 Mine Counter-Measures 27 October 1945," in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) Naval Analysis Division, 1946), 217.

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the American national character is adequately explained in the words of Japanese diplomat

Yosuke Matsuoka:

“The American would not thank you if you bowed to him and politely gave way. He would actually look down on you, thinking that you were a total pushover. If you give him a punch in the face, that’s when he will start respecting you, seeing you as his equal. Japanese diplomats should take note of this [American character](sic) from now on.”43

Other, more specific, faulty assumptions were as foolish as believing the Americans, due

to their apparently homogenous blue eyes, could not see well at night.44 Another

miscalculation was that Americans were inadequately built for submarine life. On this

unfounded bit of wishful thinking the Japanese military actually believed the United

States would not utilize submarines at all.45 Ironically, it was the Japanese submariners,

whose vessels were not climate controlled, who struggled to operate efficiently in tropic

and arctic waters.46 IJN Admirals Yamamoto and Nagano Osami, having both studied in

the United States, were highly uneasy with these character assessments by the Army,

which they considered faulty.

In the Japanese military structure, much like the Prussian foreign policy system

prior WWI, each the army and navy had independent, parallel diplomatic offices leading

to often contradictory stances on major agreements. The IJN, led by Yamamoto and

Nagano, attempted on numerous occasions to prevent war with the United States. 47 The

first round of debate concerned the signing of the Tripartite Pact, which was vigorously

opposed by the Navy’s foreign policy structure who felt aligning against the United

43 Eri Hotta, Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy (Vintage, 2014), 73.44 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 25.45 Oi, in The Pacific War Papers: Japanese Documents of World War II, 14.46 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 24.47 Ito, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 16.

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States was pure folly.48 After attempted assassinations and a deal to increase the Navy’s

petty budget, its leadership capitulated. When the Army tasked Yamamoto with planning

an assault on Pearl Harbor to force the United States into ending the oil embargo naval

commanders “expressed serious doubts about a strategy which promised no conclusion to

the war other than negotiation.”49 When asked for honest assessments of war Admirals

Yamamoto, Nagano, and Tomiji Koyanagi stated that Japan could wreak havoc for a

period of one to two years maximum before being forced to begin retreat – prophetic

figures which demonstrate that the IJN, at least, realized the inevitable consequences of

the Pearl Harbor attack. Due to the resistance of the IJN to any and all plans to confront

the Americans it is clear the major strategic faults in their war plan were force fed by a

power-hungry, resource-thirsty Imperial Army at serious risk of losing its gains in China

and concomitantly its political power in Tokyo.

The intrusion of Army officials into naval strategy, without any sort of strategic

justification, went far beyond the initial push towards conflict. In the planning of Pearl

Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto faced serious resistance from Army officers who insisted he

use battleships, rather than aircraft, to bombard the American fleet. Only after firm, but

should have been unnecessary, insistence that aircraft carry out the attack was the plan

approved. Apparently bent on national suicide, suspected officer-led attempts on

Yamamoto’s life continued even at this point, causing him to deploy to a forward fleet for

his own safety. The army’s continued intrusions on naval affairs, in addition to the IJN’s

own internal issues, led to an analogous situation to the United States at the outbreak with

48 Toshikazu Ohmae, Captain, IJN and T. J. Heding, Captain, USN, "Nav. No 43 Japanese Naval Planning 30 October 1945," in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) Naval Analysis Division, 1946), 177.49 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War), 2.

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promising technologies improperly employed, the rejection of rational strategy in favor of

politically correct maneuvers, and the undermining of effective morale development.

The battleship-centric growth of Japanese naval forces during the 1930s managed

to squander numerous innovations in aircraft carrier and submarine designs they

pioneered while genuine adherents to the predominate naval conventions. In regard to

submarines, the IJN pioneered both the creation of the submarine aircraft carrier and what

Americans would refer to as the ‘Long Lance’ torpedo capable of accurately travelling

over 40,000 meters.50 For reference, the torpedoes the Americans considered advanced

travelled a mere 5,000 meters before losing effectiveness. Additionally, the IJN’s Class 1

submarines were designed to perform trans-oceanic cruises for long range attacks on the

United States’ west coast. In regard to aircraft carriers, the IJN possessed both the

world’s largest carrier fleet and most capable carrier-born fighter, the infamous

Mitsubishi A6M Zero.51 Likewise, Japan’s five hundred naval aviators were the highest

trained in the world, averaging 500-800 flight hour each.52 Fortunately for the United

States, the Japanese military’s rigidity prevented it from utilizing these effectively.

The wastage of submarines and aircraft carriers in the IJN was not the result of

Army meddling, but continued obsession within the navy for a battleship centric fleet and

the concept of decisive victory. Despite building powerful long range submarines with

equally potent torpedoes, the IJN refused for the entire duration of the war to utilize its

submarines on intercepting the American merchant fleeting ferrying supplies across the

Pacific, instead attempting in vain to attack armed surface vessels before being located by

50 Ito, The End of the Japanese Imperial Navy, 51.51 Sakai Saburo, "Zero Ace," in Japan at War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya. Cook and Theodore Failor. Cook (New York: New Press, 1992), 138.52 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War), 3.

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American naval aviators. The total tonnage of shipping sunk by the IJN submarine fleet

in the war was a mere 600,000 tons, less than the wartime total of the top scoring

American submarine commander.53 To contribute to the decisive victory, the Japanese

submarines were to wait and harass the US fleet as it approached the battle, but the

cracking of Japanese naval codes essentially prevented this from happening. In the later

war, the submarines would be diverted to covert supply operations which would

ultimately cost the IJN most of its experienced sub crews with little gain. Despite having

a clear supremacy in naval airpower at the beginning of the war, even Yamamoto saw the

airplane as a means of providing an umbrella for battleships approaching range and not a

capital ship replacement. As a result, this diversion of Japan’s most skilled combat pilots

would whittle down their numbers as resupply missions would to the submarine crews.

As the average civilians were not technologically literate, both factions of the Japanese

military struggled to find pilots and submariners able to intuitively operate machinery.

The desperation was such that by June 1944, around the time of the Marianas Turkey

Shoot, the Japanese navy was even permitting the disabled, such as one-eyed pilot Sakai

Saburo, to fly combat missions.54

The failure to implement IJN military advances in a cost-effective manner was

part of a larger pattern of inconsistency between war aims and operations. The most

blaring inconsistency with the war effort and goals was the failure of the Japanese navy

to guard its oil shipments from the Netherlands East Indies. Per the Japanese Chief of

Naval Affairs Bureau, Vice Admiral Hoshina Zenshiro, the stoppage of American oil

53 Masuda Reiji, "Transport War," in Japan at War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya. Cook and Theodore Failor. Cook (New York: New Press, 1992), 300.54 Saburo, in Japan at War: An Oral History, 142.

Bennett 19

imports was the primary reason the Japanese declared war.55 Despite this ostensibly being

their main concern, the Japanese never employed escort tactics with sincerity nor did they

invest in anti-mine equipment until the final few years of the war. Having worked

intensely within British escorts during the First World War, the Japanese navy was not

simply lacking in tactics, it was lacking in the relative importance given to the oil and

rice imports. Meanwhile, the Japanese also ignored American shipping and strategic

weaknesses. In failing to destroy the fuel and repair bays at Pearl Harbor they effectively

only bought themselves six months rather than decisive victory. Again off Guadalcanal in

1942, with the Battle of Savo Island, the IJN ships had thirty American transports

cornered yet chose not to attack them because it would have taken too much time and had

no chance of receiving a medal – apparently the more important concern among career

minded IJN officers.56

The final major issue with the Japanese political context was its inability to

mobilize the population and create a sense of cohesion even within the officer corps of its

military As the Japanese government attempted to implement a national worker uniform

and implement austerity measures for women in 1939 they were almost entirely

ignored.57 In a similar vein on the same year, the government also attempted an ambitious

seven-year plan to create synthetic bio-fuels at sixty-six government centers and

supplement the state’s fuel needs, but failed almost entirely – only eight governmental

refineries were built which even at their peak never produced more than twelve percent of

their intended annual output.58 The inability of the military government to implement

55 Wolborsky, Choke Hold, 1.56 Reiji, in Japan at War: An Oral History, 303.57 Havens, Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two, 20.58 Wolborsky, Choke Hold: The Attack on Japanese Oil in World War II, 14.

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domestic reform showed the lack of legitimacy the new military caste held in the public

eye. Post-war interviews with Japanese sailors and even naval officers revealed similar

feelings within the fleet.59

Within both the IJN’s naval aviation corps and its non-Etijima Naval Academy

officers there was a strong displeasure with the treatment and deployment of graduates

from the contemporary merchant marine academy. Lieutenant Masuda Reiji experienced

this parallel hierarchy when an Ensign from Etijima crossed him, resulting in Lt.

Masuda’s transfer to a crippled torpedo-boat chaser, summarizing his experience, “Only

naval academy graduates are qualified to walk the decks…but we merchant mariners in

the Navy were lower than military horses, less important than military dogs, even lower

than…carrier pigeons.”60 These experiences were echoed in the naval aviation service.

Despite his status as one of the top aces, with over sixty-eight confirmed kills, pilot Sakai

Saburo expressed that he was “fed with food best fit for horses,” while his commanders

rarely contacted his unit, living in luxury five kilometers away.61 Prior to takeoff, Sakai

would give speeches to his wingmen announcing that they flew for neither their officers

nor the war effort, but survival. Likewise, both men noticed that non-academy officers

and non-commissioned officers in general were much more likely to be sent to near

death, resulting in a highly contemptuous relationship within the military ranks.

Overall, the conflict readiness of the Japanese and American Pacific fleets on the

eve of Pearl Harbor were far below optimum. As the American population directed its

political attention towards a less expensive and treaty compliant style of naval combat it

incentivized the formation of weaknesses in its entire Pacific submarine fleet which

59 Reiji, in Japan at War: An Oral History, 304.60 Reiji, in Japan at War: An Oral History, 303.61 Saburo, in Japan at War: An Oral History, 140.

Bennett 21

undoubtedly prolonged the strategic campaign. As the Japanese population had no

political relevance within the regime, the IJA and IJN continuously wasted raw and

industrial resources on highly technical ships, like the Yamato-class super battleships and

aircraft carrying I-400 submarines which would ultimately contribute roughly nothing for

their massive investments. By 1943, however, the advantage clearly began to favor the

Americans.

The Adaptation

The culmination of the American doctrinal changes came in 1943 when the

United States Navy made several crucial developments in its strategic efforts. First, the

codebreaking machines were finally being put to proper use as Admiral Nimitz focused

the submarine efforts exclusively on oil tanker imports to Japan – a key step.62 Second,

the United States, using its codebreaking ability, pinpointed the location of Admiral

Yamamoto and in his killing, removed one of the few voices of reason remaining within

the Imperial government. Third, the timid submariners of the preceding year, over two

dozen of them, were relieved from duty and replaced with recent graduates of the US

Naval Academy’s football program, where timidity was seldom found.63 In addition to

these major developments the United States also remedied its technological flaws, fleet

doctrines, and personnel issues as the Japanese simultaneously experienced a lack of both

resources and human capital as the Imperial government’s neglect to invest in its

citizenry for the prior two decades came back to haunt them.

The technological issues facing each nation during the middle of the war differed

significantly from the challenges presented in December 1941; in ways almost entirely

62 Wolborsky, Choke Hold: The Attack on Japanese Oil in World War II, v.63 Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan, 114.

Bennett 22

favoring the United States. All three torpedo defects were rectified after complaints by

commanders were heard out by the formerly secretive Naval Ordinance Bureau. The IJN,

however, which had been plagued by far fewer technical bugs than the American Navy,

still had yet to even begin designing the mine countermeasures it had neglected in the

inter-war period.64 Also, the Japanese lack of aircraft parts and fuel began to have a

negative impact on the quality of military aircraft. These technological shortcomings

would eventually combine with the bushido ideology to spark the creation of kamikaze

pilots.

The dire move to the implementation of kamikaze attacks was directly related to

the military’s single-minded re-investment of taxes and war spoils into its future

conquests during the pre-war era. As it had not re-invested in its civilian industrial

capital, in regard to mechanical familiarity, the Japanese struggled as soon as Midway in

1942 to recruit and train pilots and submariners in a suitable fashion. By 1944 the lack of

piloting ability was made clear during the Marianas Turkey Shoot in which the IJN lost

over five hundred-fifty pilots and aircraft, driving the Japanese strategy down an ever

more desperate position.

Meanwhile, as the results of failing to create pre-war industrial sustainability

became ever clearer, the IJN still neglected its merchant fleets, which were sent into

knowingly sub-infested waters with neither proper air nor naval escort. In supplying

isolated garrisons like Rabaul, the Japanese would lose up to 80% of the cargo sent at the

hands of American submarines and aircraft.65 The merchant marine, held to be of lower

64 Tamura Kyuzo, Captain, IJN and T. H. Moorer, Commander, USN, "Nav. No 5 Allied Offensive Mining Campaign," in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) Naval Analysis Division, 1946), 20.65 United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War), 5.

Bennett 23

caste by the navy, was subjected to an IJN and IJA shipping strategy no more complex

than shoving them through a meat grinder with crossed fingers. As the stranglehold

tightened, particularly in March 1945 when Japan was almost completely cut off from all

naval imports, Japanese finally decided to increase its anti-mine staff, but what had

previously been a mere thirteen employees was increased to an equally insignificant fifty

in yet another act of desperation which was too little, too late for the rigid and incohesive

regime of Imperial Japan.66 All external shipments would cease the following month of

April, after which the only imports were American bombs. Drained of resources, its

production capacity was slashed by half of the previous year, 1944 itself being one of the

lowest years of production already, heading into August 1945.

Conclusion

The military-dominated regime type of late Imperial Japan, split between

bickering IJN and IJA factions, failed to reach any true agreement on war means and

aims. As the IJA continued its costly snipe-hunt for the Chinese resistance forces on the

mainland, it implored the IJN to initiate an equally asinine and half-baked strategy to

draw the ire of an admittedly unprepared United States, by an equally unprepared IJN. By

war’s end, however, the Americans had overwhelmingly seized the initiative and learned

not only to fix its mistakes, but to capitalize on the numerous missteps of the Japanese

government. As its civilian-led government was not held hostage by its own military

forces, the democratic structure of the United States, rather than hindering it as the

Japanese pre-supposed, actually enhanced its ability to respond to the foibles in their

early war strategy. Despite their beliefs otherwise, the political intransigence of the IJA-

66 Tamura Kyuzo, Captain, IJN and T. H. Moorer, Commander, USN, "Nav. No 5 Allied Offensive Mining Campaign," in Interrogations of Japanese Officials, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific) Naval Analysis Division, 1946), 21.

Bennett 24

controlled government would ironically lead only to the demise of its previously

formidable military apparatus.

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